An Act of Treason

by Jack Coughlin

  Hall felt the pressure ease against him. “That’s it.” He could move again. He squirmed up and grabbed the man’s beefy hand. The Taliban agent clamped onto his wrist and hauled him free. Hall stood and wiped his face. Around him lay a wrecked moonscape, and more explosions were rocking the area every minute. “Thanks, big guy. I owe you one. You know a way out of here?”

  “Yes. Follow.” The big man was breathing hard, still bleeding from his nose and both ears and from a corner of his mouth. Hall guessed there was some internal damage, probably to the lungs, but said nothing. They dodged around a fallen tree and ran for safety.

  * * *

  T HE BLAST LIFTED THE fleeing Land Rover several feet into the air, as if it had been picked up by an angry child, while the momentum kept it moving forward, flying until the extreme weight of the vehicle pulled it back down. Staff Sergeant Travis Stone was slammed against the door, with his head ricocheting off the window, and he saw stars as he fought the steering wheel. The armored SUV bounced down hard, swerved onto a sidewalk, and clipped a wall. The strong engine howled as Stone gunned it. Darren Rawls, holding on with both hands, stared back wide-eyed at the carnage in their wake. “Jesus H. Christ,” he muttered.

  Entire apartment buildings were cascading down in a slow landslide of concrete and glass and metal. On the street, cars overturned, the sidewalks buckled, and other walls crumpled, then fell, and a hundred fires bloomed. Bodies lay in the street, and wounded people struggled to get away from a deadly hail that began to fall when the storehouse of antitank rockets and mortar shells ignited and spun without direction into other parts of the city. The missiles blasted into private homes, businesses, public parks, foreign embassy compounds, and hotels with equal savagery. A jagged piece of black metal blew directly over the hood of the Land Rover and sliced into a parked truck like a giant arrow. Stone kept his foot hard on the accelerator and roared on toward the edge of the city, dodging fires and wreckage. The newly dark sky boiled in crimson orange. Ruptured underground water mains spouted like fountains. Tidal waves of scalding air were being sucked through the streets, feeding the developing firestorm.

  “What happened back there?” Stone yelled. “What the fuck, man?”

  “Next left!” shouted Rawls, and Stone threw the Land Rover into a screeching ninety-degree turn. Loud booms jarred the area like an unending earthquake and shook their teeth. Debris banged against the vehicle like a hailstorm.

  “Taxi One Four, Taxi One Four. This is Trident Two Two,” Rawls shouted into his radio, trying to keep his voice calm. He felt wetness on his face as blood streamed from his ears due to the blast. He wiped it away as best he could.

  The answer came back immediately from the CH-53E helicopter. “Trident Two Two, this is Taxi One Four. Send your traffic.”

  “Roger, Taxi, Trident six mikes out.” Rawls estimated they were about six minutes from the landing zone.

  “Roger, Trident. Six mikes. We are heading in now.” The helicopter heeled out of its long turn and began a straight-in descent to prearranged coordinates. The spectacle of the explosions and fire could be easily seen from the sky, a carnival of chaos.

  “Kyle was right,” Stone said, fighting the wheel. “It was a setup.” A curtain of dirty ash had caught up with them and was drifting down, so he activated the windshield wipers. The air conditioner was going full blast as a filter.

  “We’ll worry about that later. Just keep going.” Rawls scanned the sky as the SUV charged forward over everything in its path.

  “Taxi One Four. Taxi One Four. This is Trident Two Two. One mike out, approaching from the south in a black Land Rover.”

  “Roger, Trident. I have a visual on you.”

  The huge helicopter dropped out of the night like a fast-moving monstrous shadow, then flared at the last moment, throwing up its own curtain of dirt, dust, and debris. The rear ramp was already down, and a gunner was strapped in behind a.50 caliber machine gun, watching them.

  Stone killed the headlights and stopped about twenty-five meters away, and he and Rawls jumped out.

  “Setting the timer to two minutes!” shouted Rawls as he tossed an incendiary grenade into the Land Rover to totally destroy the vehicle, their DNA, and any other trace of its use. They ran around the gunner, and the whine of the helicopter’s big GE engines immediately increased. Travis Stone held up two fingers to denote the correct count of the people coming aboard, then twirled the fingers in a circle. The crew chief nodded and spoke into his microphone.

  The helicopter lifted away and bent into a fast, climbing turn. Stone and Rawls knelt on the metal floor and looked out of the square ramp opening, holding on to supports as the horizon tilted. There was a bright flash when the incendiary bomb detonated in the backseat of the Land Rover.

  It was nothing more than a firecracker compared with the inferno back in Islamabad, where trails of rockets still sizzled through the sky, delayed secondary detonations were still rocking buildings, and fires were out of control, burning fiercely and unchecked. Their faces were orange and red with the reflection.

  “I better call home,” said Rawls, staggering into a seat and signaling the crew chief for a helmet with a radio.

  “Yeah, you better,” his partner agreed. In a softer voice, Stone whispered, “Good luck, Kyle.”

  * * *

  D ARREN R AWLS WENT TO an emergency frequency to report back directly to Task Force Trident headquarters in Washington. The signal bounced off a couple of satellites, went through the trapdoor of a global financial network’s interoffice data stream, and was routed into Trident’s private comm setup. “Trident Lizard, Trident Lizard. This is Trident Two Two. Come in.”

  In the Pentagon, Lieutenant Commander Freedman saw a flashing code on his computer screen to alert him to the incoming traffic at the same time his headset came alive. He threw up a hand and snapped his fingers to get the attention of the others. Middleton, Summers, and Dawkins stopped what they were doing and hurried to his side. “Trident Two Two. This is Trident Lizard. Send your traffic.”

  The signal was weak but clear. “Be advised Bounty Hunter confirmed mission accomplished at exactly nineteen nineteen fourteen hours. Mission compromised. Shooters attacked. Bounty Hunter is trying to exfiltrate under heavy pursuit. Attached partner missing, status unknown. Subsequent massive explosion of unknown origin is causing extensive damage downtown. We are aboard Taxi One Four. Standing by for orders.”

  General Middleton switched to the frequency. “This is Trident Six. Roger your transmission. Authorize Gunrunner for you, effective immediately. Out.” Gunrunner was a contingency plan that would let the helicopter take the two special operators to join a routine mission that was already in progress in Afghanistan. Retroactive paperwork would show that Stone and Rawls had never been in Islamabad at all.

  “Sir! Look at this!” The Lizard’s voice was rising in alarm. He had been scouring the live feeds from Pakistan, and his screen was suddenly busy with images of destruction, fires, collapsed buildings, and dead men, dismembered women, and bleeding children. Cameras shook as explosions continued to cook off in Islamabad, rocking the photojournalists. The Lizard, who never cursed, spoke for them all. “What the fuck is happening over there?”

  Double-Oh stood back and rubbed his square jaw in thought. He spoke in a calm voice, weighing possibilities and options. Nothing would be gained by panic on this end. “We have only that brief report from Staff S’arnt Rawls, and now these early news feeds. Not much to act on, General. Gunrunner takes care of our boys on the bird, but they apparently never actually linked up with Kyle. He provided the time check to confirm the shoot.”

  “Replay the call, Liz.” Major Sybelle Summers wanted to hear what had been said once again. Did they miss anything? There was obvious stress in the voice of the unflappable veteran operator Darren Rawls. Mission compromised. Shooters attacked.

  “We might not know exactly what happened, but it’s obvious that somebody is trying to kill our guy,” she sai
d. “That’s good enough for me. It was a setup.”

  “I agree, Major, but there’s no proof.” Dawkins heard a telephone buzz and picked up the receiver.

  General Middleton glowered at the screens, as if he could change things through sheer willpower. “I will need to speak to the president. Liz, put in a call to the White House and tell them I’m coming over.”

  “No need for that, sir,” said Dawkins. “That was his chief of staff again. He seems upset. Your presence has been requested.”

  22

  ISLAMABAD

  H IS WORLD FLICKERED, A grainy old movie, hard to see. Kyle Swanson opened his eyes. He could smell smoke, hear screams, taste dirt, and see rubble. It was a struggle to breathe. The sniper thought for an instant that he was tied up, but as his senses focused, he found that he could move his arms, although they were entangled in some sort of sturdy fabric. His chest was tightly held, but his feet were free. Bits of memory returned, slowly at first, and then faster, accentuated by the hellish landscape before his eyes. He was upside down in a vehicle, and a seat harness was holding him firmly in place. The other material was only air bags that had filled on impact, then deflated. Kyle worked his fingers to the buckle of the belt, snapped it open, and fell onto his head. The combination of Wearing the helmet, the goggles, and body armor and being held securely inside the car by the web of safety belts and air bags had saved his life. Getting his feet into a firm position, he gave a strong heave of his shoulders and levered himself out through the destroyed windshield, rolled out from beneath the car, and came to his knees, hands on thighs, back straight, head up, trying to breathe in a place where there was no fresh air. He had a headache that seemed ready to split his skull.

  The big goggles were safe windows to another world, and he brushed a glove over them to clean the lens. He was inside a thick, pulsing stew of smoke and pulverized concrete, dirt turned to dust and particles of civilization that had been blown to bits. The shifting, boiling cloud was everywhere, climbing the walls, channeling like a wave through the streets, scouring the ground with a savage wind.

  My God, it’s 9/11!! I’m at Ground Zero!! Swanson shook his head hard to clear it. No, that can’t be. I’m in Islamabad. Something has happened. I need air. Another memory of 9/11 came to him. This cloud is poison, and if I eat it or breathe it, I die. Think, dammit, think!

  The car. It had saved him once, and maybe the little gray sedan had another miracle. Swanson staggered to his feet, coughing hard, and felt his way along the overturned vehicle until he found the line of the trunk. It was crumpled from the rollover and subsequent impacts. Kyle grabbed the edge and yanked down hard, but there was no movement. Still locked. He pulled his pistol and fired twice, knocking the latch apart, and a gap appeared along the trunk line. He holstered the weapon and pushed down on the lid again. Please be there!

  Despite its size, the Nissan was a police vehicle, which meant that it would be equipped to have a support role in emergency situations such as accidents and riots. When the trunk lid popped open, a large black nylon emergency kit spilled out at his feet, and Kyle tore open the lid. He burrowed through the contents until he found a smaller soft-pack container; unzipping it, he pulled out an old-style hooded gas mask with built-in lenses and a large round air filter on the left side. Although it was probably meant to protect the wearer against tear gas used against mobs, it was the same familiar M-40 full-face type that Kyle had used during desert sandstorms.

  Also in the emergency kit was a plastic six-pack of sealed water bottles, and he tore one free, unscrewed the top, and sloshed the liquid over his face and eyes, drank a mouthful, and spat out streams of mud. He did it again, then took a deep hydrating drink that still tasted like dirt. He used a fingertip to clean his nostrils, then opened the straps on the mask while huffing out a couple of breaths to clear his lungs as much as possible. With a swipe of his hand, he got rid of his helmet and goggles and slipped into the mask. The protective hood fell around his shoulders, and when the straps were pulled tight, the rubberized mask sealed to his face. He could breathe again. Kyle put the helmet back on, leaned back against the wreckage, and sat down hard, sucking the filtered air deep, letting life flood back into his body.

  23

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  B ARTLETT G ENEEN WAS AMONG the most secretive of men and did not explain to White House Chief of Staff Bobby Patterson the dangers of an outsider becoming so closely involved with a covert operation. A moth drawn to a flame. In fact, Geneen was pleased that Patterson had wanted to be in on the blow-by-blow action as the dual hits took place in Pakistan.

  It was important for the CIA director to have the eager Patterson witness an assassination as it happened, for it provided automatic White House cover. Task Force Trident, which provided the second shooter in this operation, possessed a signed Top Secret Presidential Directive for its authorization, which made Kyle Swanson immune from blowback. The CIA had no such protection, but Patterson could not dump blame on the Agency if he was in on the operation, and thereby giving it tacit presidential approval.

  That was the true reason why he was in the Situation Room and not back at his office over in Langley. For any regular mission, Geneen would not have watched the event at all.

  As the magic moment had approached, Geneen and Patterson were in comfortable gray swivel chairs on opposite sides of a rectangular table of polished wood in a small office adjacent to the main Situation Room conference area. The times in six different cities were shining in red numbers near the ceiling of one wall-7:20 P.M. in Pakistan. A pair of large plasma television screens dominated one of the whisper walls, and each man had a laptop computer and a multichannel telephone on the desk before him. Patterson was constantly working the phone, calling Trident headquarters over in the Pentagon and growing angrier each time his inquiries were rebuffed. Geneen could have warned him that spooks don’t tolerate last-minute meddling, which is why they shut down comms just before taking action. The director chose to let the chief of staff discover that unpleasant fact for himself. Rookie mistake.

  Just outside the door was the large National Security Council watch center, which was always fully staffed by experts who kept their fingers and eyes on the pulse of the world. All the technology and talent that was immediately available created a comfortable and mistaken feeling that everything was always under control. Supervisors slaved to maximize the level of alertness.

  When the sun went down in Islamabad and two snipers fired their weapons, the NSC watch shift had a satellite overhead with a fuzzy but live infrared view as the operation quickly fell apart. Bobby Patterson was stunned. The multiple views were being thrown onto the plasma screens, which seemed to put him right in the middle of things. The distant and indistinct satellite views soon gave way to an avalanche of news reports and cell phone transmissions. American diplomats and intelligence agents in Islamabad popped up on quadrants of the screens to be in direct contact with the NSC. It seemed the conference room was filled with giant, disembodied talking heads. They all reported the same thing: explosions and fires rocking Islamabad.

  Patterson grimly picked up a handset to call the Residence and alert President Russell. Then he would contact that irritating general at Task Force Trident and get his two-star butt over here for a royal chewing.

  * * *

  G ENEEN USED THE DISTRACTION to slip into one of the privacy telephone booths built into a whisper wall. The curved door slid smoothly closed behind him, and he pressed a button to immediately frost the transparent glass. He stood casually, leaning against the wall, and punched in a coded number.

  A few silent moments passed as the encrypted connection was made to a cellular telephone carried in the shirt pocket of his counterpart in the Pakistani intelligence service. General Nawaz Zaman of the ISI looked at the caller identification on his screen, the one-word code “Football.” He pressed the telephone to his ear and answered, “Soccer.” The intelligence chiefs of the United States and Pakistan were speakin
g directly with each other, bypassing the labyrinth of subordinates. Such communications channels were never closed but seldom used. To prevent an overreaction and clear the field for Kyle Swanson and Jim Hall to operate, Geneen had deemed it prudent to inform the ISI chief in advance of the planned strike on the Taliban terrorists in Islamabad. Zaman had agreed that he had no reason to stop it. Now something had gone wrong.

  “My friend,” said Geneen. “What is happening?”

  General Zaman exhaled loudly enough for the sudden gust of breath to sound like a typhoon on the amplified connection. “You have blown up my city, Football! Your people have caused us more damage on this one evening than the Taliban has in a year.”

  Geneen suddenly wanted a cigarette, although he had not smoked for twenty years. “Do not jump to conclusions, Soccer. Are you sure that our people were the cause?”

  “No. It is too early to establish exactly what happened.” The sound of another explosion banged over the cell phone. “There goes another one. A lot of dead and injured civilians and military are out there tonight. Have you heard from your people?”

  “No. Nothing yet, and that’s the truth,” Geneen said. “What are you going to do?”

  Zaman was slow to answer, thinking it through. “My only choice is to report to our president now. This disaster may force him to declare martial law. We have few options. I also have to dispatch ISI agents to investigate.”

  “I understand. Let’s stay in close touch, Soccer. And brace yourself. The FBI will want in on this investigation.”